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First off, let me preface this review by saying that I'm not a great ball striker, but I have managed to hit a weak a$$ pull fade most of my life and play to a + handicap. I have done it by driving it short and straight and being a great chipper. I have had a couple of specific low points regarding the golf swing, and many of you may have experienced something similar.

Low Point #1 - Playing in a big cash game many years ago, the pin on #18 was back left, with the wind quartering into me. I am a lefty, so this was a perfect time to hit a little knockdown fade with a wedge and make a birdie. I did everything the "conventional wisdom" told me to do. I put the ball back in my stance to hit it low, and held the face open hoping for the ball to fade. Rather than a low fade, I hit a pull hook into the water. $$ lost.

I wandered into the pro shop after the round and asked the Head Pro what I did wrong. Great man, great friend, great PGA Professional, and he had my best interests in mind. He told me, "the only way you hooked it was by closing the face." Well, I went back to the 18th fairway that evening with a small bucket and attempting to hit the same shot by choking the wedge to death (hoping to keep the face open). Ball was back, face was open, and the damn ball never faded!

Low Point #2 - Trying to hit a draw with driver, good PGA teaching professional tells me that I need to move the ball outside of my front foot in order to "square the face up" and hit a draw. The further I scoot the ball up, the more it fades. PGA teaching pro says, "Must be a bad golf club."

These kinds of moments signaled to me that I was missing something . . . which is why education is so important.

If you are looking for educational high points regarding the golf swing, I suggest you purchase the Stack and Tilt 2.0 dvd's. I purchased the dvd's a couple of weeks ago and have been through them 4 times now. S&T was very kind to offer Golfwrxer's a 20% discount, so I used that to save some cheddar.

Disc #1 - The Clinic

Keep in mind, all of the actual ball flight demonstrations are done using Trackman and Protracer which triples the value of the lessons. Mike and Andy begin by discussing the traditional basics . . . Grip, Posture, Alignment, etc. While discussing these, they should that no standard player demonstrates these elements uniformly, and many of the best ball strikers of all time actually do the opposite of conventional instruction. This leads them to the Stack and Tilt basics.
1 - Hit the ground in the same spot in front of the ball
2 - Hit it a reasonable distance
3 - Hit the ball with a predictable curve

In this disc, many vital nuggets of wisdom are shared. My favorite (don't want to share them all), is the idea that posture should continuously change, which will allow the head to stay still and allow a full shoulder turn. They specifically state that a full backswing is not a flexibility issue, rather, a technique issue. Mike says that he has never come across a student who couldn't make the golf swing as they prescribe it (and also mention that if you think a program like TPI is the only way you can make a good swing, the average player will never have to time to be proficient).

Following the basics, Andy puts on a ball flight demonstration, with the ball moving the entire spectrum from pulls to pushes and everything in between. He then explains what causes where each ball starts and curves. Had I seen this 30 minute ball flight demonstration 20 years ago, I could have saved myself thousands of hours on the driving range. Disc #1 alone is worth the price of the dvd's.

Disc #2 - The Model

This disc starts with Grant Waite describing how to teach a player. Step 1 is to develop a model, step 2 is to explain the model, and step 3 demonstrated the model. This dvd is very technical and explains everything you need to know about why the golf ball does what it does, and also explains the Stack and Tilt model with both 2d and 3d checkpoints and detail. It also includes baseline Trackman numbers for the method. The disc ends with Troy Matteson demonstrating the system. Disc 2 probably needs to be watched more than a few times if you hope to teach any part of Stack and Tilt.

Disc #3 - Driver and Drills

The disc begins with Troy Matteson talking about the positive effects of Stack and Tilt for him, and then shows the pros hitting driver on Trackman and Protracer. This dvd discusses driver mechanics at length, and should answer most of the questions that many amateurs have regarding the driver swing & S&T. The disc ends with drills Mike and Andy have used to teach the mechanics of the swing.

Disc #4 - Visualization

I am a big fan of the "Seeitgolf" putting video with Aaron Baddeley. You basically watch Aaron pour in putts from everywhere and the video shows the line of the putt as it tracks into the cup. This disc does the same with Protracer. You will be mesmerized as you watch the pros pure 6 irons and drivers with the S&T model push draw. You can't help but see that ball flight in your mind when you step on the tee (just wish they could have reversed a few balls for us lefties.

Conclusion

If you are happy with what you are doing, and aren't interested in Stack and Tilt, no reason to buy this. If you teach golf, even if you don't teach Stack and Tilt, this should be a required purchase. It WILL make you a better teacher . . . you will better understand the complete cause and effect of how the club interacts with the golf ball. You will also benefit by incorporating pieces of this instruction (either for specific students, or small pieces for all students). If you are just a curious learner (guilty as charged) you will love this stuff. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

I picked up the DVD's at the show last week. Haven't finished them yet, but regardless of how you feel about S&T these are absolutely must watch. The amount of data that is contained on those discs is unlike anything I have ever seen or read before. Unlike most golf books or DVD's that are full of cliches and feelings and appeals to authority, these are simply a classification of what is actually happening in the swing and to the golf ball. I'm biased as I was a S&T proponent prior to watching, but I don't feel like these are selling me a swing. It's just presenting data and letting the conclusions speak for themselves.

First off, I think what Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer have done with Stack and Tilt is very good. Having been the victim of many poor golf lessons over the years, personal experience tells me that there are a lot of instructors providing information to their students that they don't understand and that is frankly wrong. The ball flight laws is a great example. A lot of instructors still don't understand this very well. The pivot taught in golf is another example. Very few good golfers use the traditional pivot taught by the majority of instructors. Using V1 pro I examined the pivots of the top 15 players in the world a couple of years ago. 13 of these players had little or no lateral head movement to the right during their backswing. The 2 players who did have a measurable lateral shift, moved their heads perhaps 2" to the right during their backswing. Most good players remain very centered (or almost cenetered), but this is not what is typically taught by many golf instructors. Many golfers deteriorate after taking lessons. This can be seen even at the highest level of golf (i.e. the tour player who revamps his swing to get to the next level and then disappears). There are probably a lot of reasons for this, but faulty information is certainly one of them. Bottom line, if an instructor tells you to do something and can't tell you why, or what he or she is telling you doesn't support getting to a good impact position, run a mile! It's amazing that it has taken this long for something like Stack and Tilt to challenge the traditional doctrines of golf instruction, but this was long overdue. The average handicap of golfers has not reduced for many years and most don't improve their handicap significantly after playing the game for 5 years. Clearly something is wrong with traditional instruction methods. Whether you like Stack and Tilt or not doesn't really matter, but much of the information provided by Andy and Mike is perfectly correct and is indisputable.